MANILA, Philippines — Local health authorities on Saturday reported 6,871 more COVID-19 infections, bringing the national caseload to 1,391,911. The highly contagious Delta variant is causing a surge in new COVID-19 cases even in countries with high vaccination rates -- and experts warn that immunization campaigns are in a race against time to contain it. The National Task Force Against COVID-19 on Friday said it is confident that it will reach the "important milestone" of administering over 10 million jabs before the month of June is out. Malacañang on June 24 said the government has administered over eight million COVID-19 shots and has fully inoculated 2.24 million Filipinos, only 2.04% of the population. Meanwhile, a member of the local vaccine expert panel assured Friday that recipients of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine do not need to worry if they take the second dose later than scheduled.

Source: Philippine Star June 26, 2021 08:03 UTC